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This was worse than blackmail. He’d placed the islanders’ fate in her hands. He’d placed Spiros’s fate in her hands.
What if it was a lie? In this day and age, for a marriage of convenience to be the only path to prevent disaster… It was inconceivable.
But she’d promised to do the research, and if it was true…
This was like jumping off a cliff and not knowing what was below. Only knowing that, whatever was at the end, by the time she landed she’d be going so fast the force could kill her.
CHAPTER SIX (#ulink_06572975-16b2-5e1a-8b2f-d4482cb6566c)
Sappheiros Times headlines
14th August:
‘Royal Scandal—Secret Baby’
‘Queen Uses Sister’s Baby to Keep Throne’
16th August:
‘After the Lies, Prince Regent Is Ruling Crown Prince’
21st August:
‘Islands Revert to Ancient Lineage’
‘Three Principalities From One Kingdom: Islanders’ Joy’
23rd August:
‘DNA Proves Baby Still Heir!Alexandros Confesses Affair’
‘Prince to Wed Queen’s Sister’
‘Prince Declares Lily a Worthy Princess’
‘Wedding By End of Month’
Two weeks. It was only two weeks since she’d been hit with this crazy proposition and it had moved from crazy to terrifying. She was standing at the entrance to the cathedral, ready to be a bride.
Was she out of her mind?
Maybe she was, but she’d done the research. Everything she’d read confirmed and reconfirmed what Alex had told her. Giorgos and his forebears had brought the Diamond Isles to ruin. The only way they could be saved was for them to revert to their original states; for their original ruling families to take their care into their hands. But there was such distrust…
She’d looked at it from every conceivable angle and there was no escape. From the moment she’d seen Spiros’s face, full of incredulous hope, she’d known what she had to do.
Alex had come back the next day and she had her answer ready.
‘Yes,’ she’d told him. ‘For a year. No more. And you touch me and the deal is off. It’s a marriage in name only. Is that clear?’
‘It’s what I want,’ he’d told her. Then, watching her, clearly unable to figure out her response, he’d added, ‘It’s a marriage, Lily. It’s not the gallows you’re walking into.’
‘It’s a trap,’ she’d said. ‘I’m doing it but I don’t have to like it.’
‘It’s not a trap of my setting and I don’t like it either,’ he’d said.
And then he’d left. There was financial chaos in Sappheiros, he’d told her, and he had to sort it out. But the wedding was to take place by the end of the month.
And then the roller coaster began. Or the avalanche. Or whatever it was, but it made her so giddy she thought surely she must still be drifting in and out of the same nightmare world she’d been in before.
Arrangements, arrangements, arrangements. Curt, formal telephone calls with Alex, interspersed by longer calls from officialdom, arranging everything from her bridal gown to a white teething ring for Michales so he could chew his gummy way through the ceremony and still look… bridal?
Yes, the thing was ridiculous, and finally she decided okay, if it was ridiculous she’d simply treat it as a joke gone wrong. She’d close her eyes and get it over with.
And here she was. Her wedding day.
She was about to enter the cathedral where Alexandros had taken his vows two months before. The last time she’d entered this cathedral, she’d slipped in at the rear, wanting to remain anonymous.
Now… Every man and woman was on their feet, waiting for her entrance, and Alex was standing at the altar. The Archbishop was in front and central. Waiting for her.
She was ready to walk down the aisle. Alone.
‘Have Spiros give you away,’ Alex had told her. ‘You can’t do this by yourself. Stefanos and Nikos will attend me. You need bridesmaids. At least have Spiros.’
‘I need no one,’ she’d said. ‘I don’t see why we can’t do this in a government office.’
‘It needs to be done with all the pomp and splendour we can muster,’ he’d told her. ‘The islanders need reassurance that this is real—no one should disbelieve that you’re my wife.’
‘I’m not your wife.’
‘You are,’ he’d said gravely. ‘You’ve agreed.’
‘Until you have the island stable. No more.’
‘Then for the time we have I’ll do you honour.’ In a different tone this might have been a lovely thing to say but it was said in the tone of a man who knew where his duty lay. ‘As the country will do you honour and as you’ll do yourself honour. It’s meant as a reassurance to the country that we can move forward. There’ll be nothing secret or covert about it. You’ll wear full royal regalia, as will I.’
This final decree had left her almost speechless. ‘A real royal wedding?’ She hadn’t attended Mia’s wedding—they’d been so distant by then that Mia would never have thought of inviting her—but she’d seen the media coverage and the thought of doing the same left her cold. ‘You’re telling me what I should wear?’
‘My people tell me there’s no time to make you a completely new gown but if you’ll agree… The royal wedding gowns have been amazing over the centuries, and they’ve been carefully stored and kept, every one. If we can get you here a few days before the wedding, we can get one altered. You could even wear Mia’s.’
And then he’d listened to the silence and conceded, ‘Okay, maybe not Mia’s. But there will be one that fits you. There’s no time to make you one as splendid, and this has to be done right.’
Fine. She was past arguing.
She could do it.
She’d flown here four days ago. The royal assembly line had swung into place the minute she’d arrived. She’d been shown to her own apartment within the palace—an apartment she assumed would be hers for the duration of her marriage. It was opulent to the point of crazy. They’d suggested Michales use the royal nursery and she’d knocked that on the head. There was a cot in the corner of her apartment now; as long as she had Michales she could live anywhere.
So she’d done what was expected, whatever she was told. She’d hardly seen Alexandros and then only when he’d been surrounded by palace officials, lawyers, advisors.
She’d been given her own lawyers. That had surprised her. In all the chaos she’d been given this one sliver of control. The lawyers had been engaged in her name, and they’d been competent and thorough in drawing up a pre-nuptial agreement for her protection. She had no doubt that at the end of her marriage she could walk away—with Michales and with an allowance that made her head swim.
She’d put up a feeble protest about the money but her lawyers had simply ignored it.
‘This pre-nuptial agreement may well become public and the Prince must be seen as doing the right thing by you and his son,’ she’d been told, and once again she’d subsided.
As she’d subsided in everything. At least Michales would always be well provided for.
But now… The organ blared into its triumphant wedding march. Reality was suddenly right here. She’d been pushed off the end of the royal conveyor belt and here she was, about to be married.
She wasn’t… her. She was inside some creature wearing full bridal gear, extravagant to the point of ridiculous, inside a cathedral, about to be married.
It wasn’t Lily who was doing this. It was someone else. Lily was trapped inside.
The doors swung open. At the end of the aisle… Alex.
For two weeks she’d blocked him almost completely from her mind. She was about to be married but this wasn’t about Alex. It wasn’t about either of them.
Maybe her decision to walk down the aisle on her own had been a mistake. She wouldn’t mind Spiros’s arm to lean on right now. She wouldn’t mind anything to lean on.
She needed to start walking.
Alex was waiting.
No. She told herself that sharply. It wasn’t Alex. Just as she was trapped inside someone else, the man at the end of the aisle was a stranger, some prince in his regimentals, waiting to marry a woman in a gown of shimmering beaded lace, with a glorious train trailing twenty feet behind her, with a three-tiered veil attached with a tiara, which had come straight from the royal vaults, the dresser had breathed. Worth a king’s ransom.
Her legs felt frozen.
Do this and get it over with, she told herself.
Everyone was looking at her. Everyone was waiting.
Deep breath. Do this and get on with your life.
She looked along the aisle and Alex was smiling at her.
Her prince.
No. If she thought Prince her feet wouldn’t move.
She had to get a grip on what was reality and what wasn’t. This was Alex smiling at her. The father of her child.
This wedding was a fantasy, but the fantasy had a name.
Alex.
She stepped forward and she looked directly at her waiting bridegroom. She forced herself to smile back.
She could do this.
She could be married to Alex.
He’d suggested she have Spiros give her away. But…
‘No,’ she’d told him. ‘Eleni’s taking care of Michales during the ceremony. That’s all I’ll ask of them. If I ever get married for real I want Spiros to give me away then. But not now. Not for a marriage of convenience.’
So she was alone. He hadn’t realised quite how alone until he saw the cathedral doors swing open. She was standing quite still, quite calm. She looked as determined on this course as she’d been from the moment she’d agreed to his proposal.
‘You know, this could work,’ Nikos said from beside him.
Alex was watching Lily walk steadily towards him, regal and lovely, her head held high, the magnificent gown making her look almost ethereal. He was forcing himself to smile at her as the congregation were clearly expecting him to do—but something inside him was twisting. Hurting.
‘Why the hell wouldn’t it work?’ he growled.
‘The islanders hated the idea of another Mia,’ Nikos whispered. ‘But you just need to look at Lily to see she’s not like her sister. Mia had twelve bridesmaids. Mia had so much bling you couldn’t see her for glitter. Lily’s different. Simple and lovely.’
Simple and lovely… They weren’t words Alex would have thought appropriate for a royal bride.
But they were right.
Lily was not doing this for money. His cheque remained in its pieces—or maybe it had been burned long since—and it had never been replaced. She’d even tried to refuse the allowance his lawyers had written into the pre-nuptial contracts should they ever divorce. ‘You can pay for Michales’s upbringing and nothing else,’ she’d said.
This wedding… this marriage… it seemed she was doing this for Sappheiros. She wanted nothing from it.
He didn’t believe it yet. He couldn’t. The anger and disbelief he’d held ever since he’d learned of Michales’s true parentage still simmered.
Do this and get it over with.
She’d almost reached him. He smiled and she smiled back, but he knew her smile was as forced as his.
This wasn’t the smile he knew from a year ago. This wasn’t the Lily he’d made love to. This was a stranger, a woman coerced.
He had an almost irresistible impulse to take her hand and walk out, right there and then. Before this mock marriage could take place. Not because he didn’t want it. But because… it felt intrinsically wrong.
She’d agreed to this marriage for all the wrong reasons.
He took her hand and it was icy. Unresponsive.
She looked trapped.
She’d trapped herself by bearing his child, he thought grimly. By agreeing to Mia and Giorgos’s great lie.
Forget it, he told himself harshly. Forget the lie. Concentrate on now. Concentrate on the need to be married.
So be it.
Her smile had faded as she’d realised he’d only been smiling for the sake of their audience. He watched a fleeting shadow of something… hurt?… pass over her face.
Why should she be hurt?
